The Sunday Oregonian., May 21, 1916, SECTION SIX, Image 69

MAGAZINE
SECTION SIX
Pages 1 to 8
SECTION
PORTLAND, OREGON, MAY 21, 1916.
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Furore for Elaborate, Extravagant
and Fantastic Gowns That Reflect
Many Nations, and That
I I world up just a little closer to its neighbor.
wn&t used to be an lmpossioie mental journey
through geographical defiles and jungles of maps
has become a dally commuting incident for the Ameri
can mind.
An American citizen -who used to hear of the Eu
' phrates river as . a stream somewhere near the site of
the original cottage of our first parents now knows inti
mately the bends of the stream, along with Its neighbor,
the Tigris, and Is able to picture In his mind's eye the
Parody
the New
Fashions
rv
ZUbs Carolyn Gerken
in the Rich Turkish
Costume She Wore at
t Recent BalL
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One of Che Lavish
Oriental Gowns
Seen- at a Private
Fete in Chicago.
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Miaa
Eugenie
Rand
Dressed as
Princess
Katherine
of the
Henry V.-Period.
mtnnnira.,
Kiss Florence Everett as Seen
at Miss Gerken's Ball.
location of a battery where Paul stood and tamed to tne
Epheslans.
The shrinking of the globe to our own mental range
Is nowhere shown more strikingly than in the prevalent
mania for tableaux vivants, and every sort of social de
vice that gives the excuse for fantasies of clothes. On
every side, with the summer season as the chief end of
man and woman.- the passion for representing the cos
tumes and the dances and poses, of foreign lands has
grown. The native costume of Turkey, of Servia. the
sort of clothing- that the Russian woman affects, the
styles that obtain In Sweden, and even the curious trap
pings of my lady of Senegamblan fame, are becoming as
well known to the American woman, through the influ
ence of the war, as the Fifth avenue styles used to be.
The summer program of entertainments will follow
the lead of the winter and at country and seaside homes
there will be outdoor and indoor entertainments In which
foreign lands have been robbed, or will be robbed, of
their picture and their color.
One of the most brilliant of recent costume fetes was
given by Miss Carolyn Gerken of King's Highway, New
York. . The Gerkens have a mansion, one of the oldest
and most historic homes on Long Island, and annually
give a big affair to which
eastern society looks for
ward. Miss Gerken, Miss Mil
dred Bale and Miss Florence
The New Hooped Gowns
Are Made the Excuse for
Costly Exaggerations at Fancy
Dress Parties.
Everett appeared In Turkish" costumes." The orient was.
Indeed, curiously represented In many picturesque drap
lngs and decorations.
Like entertainments have become the fashion through
out the country. Brilliant costume parties have been held
in Chicago, in St. Louis, in Denver, in San Francisco and
In Seattle, while Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and
other cities of the East have been striving to give a new
turn to the costume idea. One of the vagaries of the
season has been to take the fashionable hooped gown
and exaggerate its effects until the result has been to
produce a picture quite as startling as any that have
been borrowed from far countries or distant times. The
fashionable use of gold and silver trimmings has lent an
element of the barbaric to the modern mode. This is so
far true that the step to orientalism seems less startling
than at any recent period in the strange history of
fashion.
"But it Is true, undoubtedly, that the war, and the
resulting spread of information as to hitherto mysteri
ous regions, have had most to do with the present revival
of fascinated interest in the devious whimsicalities of
costume, so fruitful of pictorial surprise. What results
of these excursions Into the remote may have on future
American devices for the decoration of the feminine
form may well engage the speculation of specialists who
consider the whole philosophy of clothes..
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